ASU needs to connect more with the Greater Phoenix area in order to improve the region’s culture and economy, said urban experts and community members on the Tempe campus Wednesday.

“A great community and a great university have to work together,” ASU President Michael Crow said to a room of faculty, students and Valley residents at the “Partnerships for Purpose” dialogue program, presented by the University Design Consortium.

“If you want a community to be successful in the complex world that we live in today … the worst thing you can do is build a university that is somehow separate from the community,” he said.

To bridge that gap, Crow said, there must be a change in the University’s centuries-old institutional model.

“You have to go down right into the structure of the institution and change the reason for its existence,” he said.

Keynote speaker Eugenie Birch, co-director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Institute for Urban Research, identified ASU as an “anchor institution,” or a major source of employment and influence in a metropolitan setting.

“[Anchor institutions] are place-based and place-dependent,” she said.

This codependent relationship, Birch said, is why universities like ASU must make efforts to connect with communities to drive the economy and build the city.

Following Birch’s presentation, panels discussed the need for innovation in urban planning, the characteristics of successful community-university partnerships and ASU’s responsibility to the community, among other urban collaboration issues.

Panelists ultimately sought to address what Phoenix needs to do to build a rich urban atmosphere and what ASU can do to help.

Place-making, or creating emotional connections to public spaces, is an important part of community retention, according to the panel discussing urban innovation, which included Local First Arizona director Kimber Lanning.

“We’ve been losing our brightest young people,” Lanning said, adding that these young people often seek a change in environment to jump-start their careers and adult lives.

“It’s not about the quality of education,” she said. “I believe it has more to do with them wanting to live in a city that is vibrant, creative and urban.”

The solution is to create connections to place, Lanning said — something she tries to do in Local First Arizona, a local business-promoting network.

Another issue Phoenix needs to address in urban planning is the immigration debate’s effect, said Stardust Center for Affordable Housing director Kurt Creager.

“Arizona probably won’t retain its multicultural students until it deals with immigration up front,” he said. “Until Arizona deals with its confusion about immigration, it seems to me, as an outsider, that the state is at war with itself.”

Panelist ASU economics professor Jose Lobo said he agreed.

“Diversity is absolutely crucial for an urban economy,” he said.

Justice studies doctoral student Sarah Flett said she’s excited by the dialogue between ASU and the community, but is more eager to see collaborative action.

“There is more on the talk level than I see on the practice level,” she said. “It’s great to see these conversations and the attempts to move forward, but I would like to see it tangibly in effect.”

Reach the reporter at jessica.testa@asu.edu.